


It's Nothing Personal

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 18:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years ago in the war, John Watson had saved his life. Now John was the one in the target of his rifle scope, and just because he owed the man his life it didn't mean he wouldn't be willing and able to put a bullet in his head. Sebastian Moran didn't believe in life debts, after all, so this was nothing personal. It was just a job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Nothing Personal

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt answered for the sherlockmas Afterglow Fest, this time being "Any pairing with optional past John/Moran - John had saved Moran's life in Afghanistan, Moran feels no compunction to repay the favor." I kept it gen and mostly Moran POV, so I hope that's okay.

There was a reason Moriarty had set him on John Watson. Moriarty liked twisted games, twisted amusements. The fact that he actually had known John Watson, that John Watson had saved his life years ago, was what appealed to Moriarty when he had sent out the assignments of who would kill who if Sherlock didn’t do exactly what he was told to do. Sebastian Moran had simply looked at the job as a chance to get a nice payday and take out another link to his past.

He liked to kill. It had been the reason he became a soldier, the reason he had gotten to be the best sniper that he could be. His kill count was tremendous, and while it had been good for a while to kill enemy insurgents in the desert soon it wasn’t enough. He found himself setting his sights on the local populace who didn’t deserve the help they were getting, on the commanding officers who barked their orders and treated their men like pawns in a chess game, and even on those he worked and lived with, his fellow soldiers. He passed the time plotting ways to kill them all and get away with it. He was smart enough. He could do it.

John Watson had no clue what he had stopped that day. Sebastian had had it all planned out, his perfect murder. He knew that when they were in enemy territory there was a high likelihood of gunfire erupting, of the enemy insurgents taking the opportunity to get rid of a few more Western dogs, of the people they reviled the most. And so he waited. He had taken the gun of one insurgent already and was biding his time. And when he got his wish, when his team was ambushed and the firefight started, he broke away from the group. He made it look like he was looking for cover when in reality he was taking careful aim at his commanding officer.

Only he hadn’t seen the man sneaking up behind him. Bloodlust had clouded his vision, a mistake that could have been fatal but wasn’t, mostly because of John. John was an excellent shot himself, especially for being a doctor. When Sebastian had felt like socializing with the others sometimes he had talked to John about why a man who had dedicated his life to saving lives would be taking them in a desert wasteland in the Middle East. They were interesting conversations, he had to admit, and they were the only reason John Watson had never been on his list of potential victims.

John had shot the man down, but not before he got hit in the leg himself. He went down, and for a brief moment Sebastian considered breaking his unspoken rule and killing John, just because the look of shock as he put a bullet to John’s chest would be interesting. But it was either John or the commanding officer, and the golden window of opportunity was fast closing. He weighed his options quickly, then fired a shot into his commanding officers forehead. The man went down and Sebastian moved over to the insurgent that John had shot and planted the gun on him. Then he started firing on the insurgents again, acting every bit the good little soldier.

He’d gotten away with it. He had worried for a moment he wouldn’t, but the unit mourned their commanding officer, taken down by a well-placed shot from some insurgent scum, and fretted over John, whose injury was so severe he was going home. It was best in the end that Sebastian could keep his bloodlust under control, long enough to get out of the foreign hellhole he was in. Three months after the perfect execution his unit was sent back, and he was discharged.

It didn’t take long for Moriarty to find him. He had heard whispers of this man, this great criminal mastermind. You didn’t look for Moriarty. If you had something he wanted, he would find you. And Sebastian knew he had a skillset and a kill count and a bloodlust that would attract the man’s attention. He had only been back on English soil for two months when he was collected and taken to the great man himself. Within thirty minutes of their meeting the people who had kidnapped him were dead, and Moriarty said he may have just found his new number two. And it only got better from there.

He had worked hard for Moriarty, and gotten the chance to do as many kills as he wanted. He was always coming up with new and creative ways to take out his targets, ways that showed he was the best of the best, ways that proved he was Moriarty’s right hand man for a reason. He was impressive, and he knew it, and it showed. He got respect and he got to do something he enjoyed, something that gave him a reason to get out of bed in the morning. He got to kill and he got to be the best at it, and that was all that mattered to him.

So now it was years later, and the man before him had gone and allied himself with the one man Moriarty wanted to take down the most. Perhaps he should have snuffed out John’s life that day in Afghanistan. But it hardly mattered now. Today John’s death would only be part of the job, another notch in his belt, another addition to his impressive kill count. It wasn’t anything personal. Just because John had saved him didn’t mean he needed to repay the favor. He was not a man who believed in life debts, in owing someone for saving your life. That was an honorable thing, and he was by no means an honorable man. Loyalty was one thing, and he had his own code of honor, but it wasn’t the same as society’s, wasn’t the same as John’s. And in the end, that differing sense of honor would spell out the end of John Watson’s life, if that was what his friend’s actions led to. It was just a matter of time now and, after all, it was nothing personal.


End file.
